“Why do you look in that disagreeable way, Corbet?  I never saw a man whose face can express one thing, and his words another, so effectually as yours, when you wish.”

“You mane to say, sir,” he returned, with a true sardonic smile, “that my face isn’t an obedient face; but sure I can’t help that.  This is the face that God has given me, and I must be content with it, such as it is.”

“I was told this morning by Father M’Mahon,” replied the other, anxious to get rid of him as soon as he could, “that you had expressed a wish to see me.”

“I believe I did say something to that effect; but then it appears you know everything yourself, and don’t want my assistance.”

“Any assistance we may at a future time require at your hands we shall be able to extort from you through the laws of the land and of justice; and if it appears that you have been an accomplice or agent in such a deep and diabolical crime, neither power, nor wealth, nor cunning, shall be able to protect you from the utmost rigor of the law.  You had neither mercy nor compassion on the widow or her child; and the probability is, that, old as you are, you will be made to taste the deepest disgrace, and the heaviest punishment that can be annexed to the crime you have committed.”

A singular change came over the features of the old man.  Paleness in age, especially when conscience bears its secret but powerful testimony against the individual thus charged home as Corbet was, sometimes gives an awful, almost an appalling expression to the countenance.  The stranger, who knew that the man he addressed, though cunning, evasive, and unscrupulous, was, nevertheless, hesitating and timid, saw by his looks that he had produced an unusual impression; and he resolved to follow it up, rather to gratify the momentary amusement which he felt at his alarm, than from any other motive.  In fact, the appearance of Corbet was extraordinary.  A death-like color, which his advanced state of life renders it impossible to describe, took possession of him; his eyes lost the bitter expression so peculiar to them—­his firm thin lips relaxed and spread, and the corners of his mouth dropped so lugubriously, that the stranger, although he felt that the example of cowering guilt then before him was a solemn one, could scarcely refrain from smiling at what he witnessed.

“How far now do you think, sir,” asked Corbet, “could punishment in such a case go?  Mind, I’m putting myself out of the question; I’m safe, any how, and that’s one comfort.”

“For a reply to that question,” returned the other, “you will have to go to the judge and the hangman.  There was a time when you might have asked it, and answered it too, with safety to yourself; but now that time has gone by, and I fear very much that your day of grace is past.”

“That’s very like what James tould me in my dhrame,” said the old man, in a soliloquy, dictated by his alarm.  “Well, sir,” he replied, “maybe, afther all—­but didn’t you say awhile ago that you wouldn’t give sixpence for any information I could furnish you with?”